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Wednesday, April 08, 2009

Fat: What is it they say about making sausages?

Nice, eh?

You have to grind the meat a couple of hours before you stuff sausages, so I decided to do that right before I went to pick up Owen from school to drive him to piano lesson. I thought it would take me just a few minutes to run the meat and fat through the grinder and I'd be on my way. (I'm making the lamb sausages from Jennifer McLagan's Fat.)

I eventually called the piano teacher and told her we'd be late. I called fifteen minutes later and told her we couldn't come. You can't leave the house for an hour with a grinder full of half-ground meat. It took close to forty-five minutes, start to finish, as stringy and sinewy bits of lamb and sludgy fat kept getting stuck in the machine and I had to repeatedly disassemble and clean the whole apparatus. My fault. I didn't read the manual before I started, which is a really awful habit. Then my mother called in the middle of this: Aren't you supposed to be at piano lesson? Lecturing ensued, and I almost threw the phone across the room. That is another really awful habit.

She is here now. I just heard a car pull up. She has brought one of her oldest friends, an amazing cook, and I think that despite the rocky beginning, sausages will be fun. I just got a look at the casings and they are slippery and very strange and I like that! We're also having scalloped potatoes, a salad with butter dressing, and homemade donuts for dessert. I've never made good scalloped potatoes, but if anyone can point me in the right direction, it is Anne Mendelson.

2 comments:

My husband just discovered our meat grinder attachment and has made hamburgers a few times. They are AMAZING - airy (which can fill with juicy goodness while cooking) and so tasty with just salt, pepper and frozen butter mixed in. We will have to try the sausages next!Scalloped potatoes - Jacques Pepin has a great Potato Gratin recipe in Fast Food My Way (or the sequel).

Moro by Sam & Sam Clark. Shelf essential? Yes. An all-time favorite. A brilliant and fascinating book about the cuisines of North Africa and the Mediterranean.

Gourmet Today edited by Ruth Reichl. Shelf Essential? No. Not a bad book, but it can't decide if it's aspiring to be an all-purpose classic or something else entirely. It's neither. Recipes are mostly solid, few outstanding.

Mexico, One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless. Shelf essential? No, but a very useful and reliable Mexican cookbook.

Revolutionary Chinese Cookbook by Fuchsia Dunlop. Shelf essential? Yes, especially if you're a Chinese food fanatic and want to delve into its regional cuisines. Though some of the recipes are too weird even for me, the beef with cumin was one of the best things I've ever cooked.

The Seventh Daughter by Cecilia Chiang. Shelf essential? Sure, though if there's only room in your collection for one "basic" Chinese cookbook go for Barbara Tropp's Modern Art of Chinese Cooking.